Harrisburg, Pa.—Jan Coates held up the ragged quilt that represented her once–shattered life. Projected on a screen was a picture of her as a young girl with a bruised face and a dirty dress.

Coates, author of the book Set Free: God's Healing Power for Abuse Survivors and Those Who Love Them, was the keynote speaker for the Eastern Territory's Social Services Conference Oct. 2–5 in Hershey, Pa. The theme was "Strengthening the Patchwork Family."

Coates, who suffered physical, mental, and sexual abuse as a child, called on her audience to get out their "spiritual stethoscope"—the Holy Spirit—when dealing with clients.

"We get the remnants," she said. "We get the odd, irregular patchworks, don't we? A lot of people you deal with have already hit rock bottom."

Since most abused clients are not likely to reveal their problems, Coates urged her listeners to pray, "God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, reveal to me what is going on with this person."

Coates said she did everything in her power, such as wearing long sleeves to cover up bruises and cuts, to hide the evidence that she was being abused.

"You can't tell by looking," she told the audience.

Even doctors often don't ask a patient if they're being abused, Coates said. "Maybe we ought to start asking," she said. "I know I never faced issues. I buried them deep within my hardened heart. That's where they stayed."

Writing 'Set Free'

Coates says she later rededicated her life to Christ and found great healing in writing Set Free, a book about six abused women. Coates said she sometimes felt like throwing her manuscript against the wall because writing it meant reliving her own past, and that was not easy.

"The Salvation Army was my inspiration to keep on going," she said. "You reach the people that are hopeless, helpless, and homeless. Including my mother."

Coates said her mother, Bertha Cower, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and depression and was an alcoholic and drug addict.

"Her life was a living hell," she said. "[But] there's hope for irregular patchwork. There's hope for all of us."

Coates said she was working in computer sales in Kansas City when she and her boss were driving out of a parking garage one snowy day after making a sale. Coates said she nearly hit a woman, who turned out to be her mother. "She had become a bag lady," she said.

An Army of friends

When Coates went to her mother's apartment later that day, what she found surprised her. Her mother, normally mean and violent, was kind and smiling. Coates also noticed that the beer and drugs were gone.

"I said, 'Mother, what's going on?' "

Her mother explained that she now had a job and friends and was going to Bible study. Coates was floored when her mother took her that night to a Salvation Army dinner. There, Coates met the people who had befriended her mother.

"I gave up on my mother, but you didn't," she said. "The Salvation Army never gave up hope on my mother. Never. What you do matters. You changed her from a mean, vulgar woman into a peaceful, loving woman who dedicated her last seven or eight years to serving the Army," she said.

Coates said her father had spent thousands of dollars on shock treatment and pills for his wife, but nothing worked as well as the new life she found in Jesus Christ.

"Sometimes it takes an Army to share the love of Jesus and change a broken life into something beautiful," Coates said. "Sometimes it takes an Army to take that ugly little patchwork and turn it into a beautiful quilt."

Several delegates had tears in their eyes and were still talking about Coates's words as they moved on to a series of workshops. Major John Cheydleur, territorial social services secretary, called this year's selection among the best ever offered; the topics ranged from fighting Internet pornography to human trafficking to anger management.

'I will restore'

Delegates also heard the testimony of Tangy Major, a New Jersey woman who fell for an older man while in college and contracted AIDS from him.

Major later married the man, Lawrence, and the couple had a son named Isaiah. The boy soon came down with a persistent cough and stopped eating. Doctors kept assuring Major that he was fine, but he soon developed a fever and had to go into the hospital.

A few days later, she got the diagnosis: Isaiah had HIV, and she and her husband both had full-blown AIDS. Isaiah's condition continued to worsen; and he died at the age of 6 months.

"I felt like I didn't exist," she said. "I felt like I was nothing. I felt like I should die. I felt like he died because of my mistake."

Major tried going back to school, but she couldn't keep her mind on her studies. One day when she was feeling particularly hopeless, she fell on her knees and asked God to forgive her.

"From that point on I really felt the presence of God and what it means for Him to love you and love you unconditionally and what it means to have hope in such a hopeless situation," she said. "He spoke to my heart and told me, 'You shall live and not die.' "

She later finished school and Lawrence was accepted to seminary. She said God told her to love him and He would restore everything she lost. Along the way, Lawrence's health deteriorated and he died.

However, Major says, she soon met another man, Marvin, who is now her husband. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Kayla. Miraculously, she does not have HIV.

Major said her message is that "love will change a person." She advised the audience, "Just continue to love."

"The most important thing that helped me was love," she said. "The love that was shown to me changed me... gave me hope... gave me support... made me not feel that I was by myself."